Posts Tagged ‘best of 2007’

Welcome to 2008 … and welcome to the new version of the blog: fresh new look, same great taste!

Please be sure to change the link in your bookmarks and, if you are so kind as to link to me on your blog or site, please be to update that link, as well.

If you tuned in yesterday then you already know the story behind my desire to make a New Year’s Pretzel, more properly known as a Neujahrspretzel. The internet, it turns out, is not a great well of knowledge on the subject. I did, however, find a recipe and my version of it is below.

It is tradition to eat the pretzel for breakfast on New Year’s Day, but here at the Outpost we like to turn tradition on its head from time time. We broke our pretzel just after midnight in the hopes that it will bring good luck through the new year. We then, of course, ate pretzel again this morning for breakfast.

The pretzel is delicious – a sweet, chewy, very satisfying type of bread. The recipe below is enough to make two large pretzels, Halve the recipe to make one pretzel, or do as I did and make the whole recipe and freeze half. The half now sitting in our freezer will not be twisted into another pretzel as that is only for New Year’s and I can think of several other delicious uses for the dough.

New Year’s Pretzel with Icing

2 cups vanilla soymilk

1/2 cup Earth Balance buttery spread

2 packages active dry yeast

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup (1 small container) vanilla soy yogurt

1 tbsp canola oil

7 cups flour

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp almond extract

2 tbsp + 1 tsp water

1/2 cup chopped nuts (I used chopped pecans)

1. Heat soymilk and Earth Balance in a saucepan until very warm . In a large bowl, mix the yeast, salt, sugar, and 1 cup flour. Slowly beat the warm soymilk and EB into the dry ingredients and beat for 2 minutes. Add soy yogurt, oil, and 1 cup of flour and beat for an additional 2 minutes.

2. Add enough flour (between 3 and 4 cups) to form a soft dough. Knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes, adding the remaining flour throughout to prevent the dough sticking to your kneading surface and your hands. Place dough in a greased bowl. Let rise in a warm place for about 1 hour.

3. Punch dough down and let rise again for another hour. Divide dough in half. Roll dough into a rope about 30 inches long and 1 1/2 inches in diameter and shape into a pretzel. Repeat with second half of dough or freeze that half for later use.

5. To make icing: mix confectioners’ sugar, water vanilla, and almond extract. Add more water if you would like an icing with a thinner consistency. Drizzle or spread icing on pretzel(s) and sprinkle with chopped nuts.

Also, on this first day of the new year I would like to take moment to look back at the year just passed. Listed below are my favorite recipes posted to the blog in 2007.